Emily

Surrounded by her loving family and friends Emily Mandell lost her battle with cancer today.  It's amazing that a child I've never met could have such a profound impact on me, my heart aches for her and her family.  I'm sure that all of you feel the same.  

You can leave a message for her family on her carepage.  Go to carepages.com, and search for Emily12806.

Say a prayer

A little over a week ago, I wrote about Emily Mandell.  I signed up to get updates from her carepages a while ago and every time I got an email letting me know that her page had been updated my heart tugged a little and I said "please let Emily be all right."  And then today I got an email and read the update and now I'm crying because Emily isn't all right.  Things with Emily are very serious.  You can read her latest updates here.

I do not know Emily or her family, I happened to find out about her from a blog that I read.  But I saw in Emily's sweet face the face of my own child.  I can only imagine what her parents are going through, they are facing the absolute worst situation a parent can face.  

So if you are the praying sort, please say a prayer for Emily and her parents today.  

I call bullshit

I'm always scouring the cooking for toddlers blogs for new food ideas.  On one of them, the author/mom basically puts forth the theory that her kid has a sophisticated palate because of her wholesome fresh cooking and he's not picky because he gets a variety of healthy food served to him instead of fast food.  And I'd just like to add one more thing to the mix of why your child will eat anything - because you are freaking LUCKY lady.  There's some evidence that picky eaters are born not made and to that I say, Amen.  I made all of my daughter's baby food, it wasn't all that difficult and I figured I could give her a nice variety of foods.  And until she hit a year old, she ate everything.  Well, except meat - I'm vegetarian and she's been offered meat a few times and doesn't like it.  But since then (now almost a year) aside from fruit (primarily berries) and broccoli there is no slam dunk food we know she'll eat without hesitation. I'm happy that the few things we know she'll always eat are healthy but what the hell is up with a kid that doesn't like mac & cheese?  I would like to see the next installment of Top Chef be targeted toward toddlers.  If a toddler will eat whatever you make, you win.

Today's thing that doesn't suck is twitter.  I've renewed my addiction because I'm following Rainn Wilson and Jim Gaffigan.  Though I read that celebrities are hiring people to twitter for them.  Hey celebrities, I'll twitter for you for money.  Here's a sample of what I'd post: Paris Hilton: I have a herpes outbreak AGAIN.  Kim Kardashian: Does my butt look huge in this? Michelle Duggar: Does Jesus want me to have another baby?

Hail and television

Yesterday we had one of those spring thunderstorms that when I lived in the midwest, we had every other day.  It is apparently not as common here and judging by all my local friends' facebook posts the hail just freaked them out.  In my 24 years of driving I've had at least 3 cars with a decent amount of hail damage so I wasn't that impressed.  It did make me think of a particular hail storm though.

About 10 years ago a friend and I went to Boulder to run the Bolder Boulder 10k.  It's a fun race that attracts thousands of people.  While there we met up with a guy that my mom's friend was trying to hook me up with (he was her friend's cousin).  He was a very cool guy, outdoorsy and fun.  Now if you don't know anything about cycling, lots of people are usually mountain bikers or road cyclists.  I am a roadie.  Not because I think it's superior or anything but simply because mountain biking takes way more coordination than I have.  So this guy wants to take my friend and me mountain biking.  And I'm a good sport and my friend really wanted to go and I wanted to impress the guy so I go along.  About 10 minutes into the ride I crash.  Not a particularly spectacular crash and I don't want to be a buzzkill so I pretend I'm fine and we carry on.  About oh, another 30 minutes later I cannot move my left arm and if I need to shift gears I have to reach over and do it with my right arm.  Finally after 2 hours I say "I don't want to be a party pooper or anything but I can't really move my arm anymore."  Because I had snapped my radius in half.  While we are driving home from that trip we get caught in a hail storm (and I am driving my new car) and it's raining so badly that I can't see so we pull off the interstate to wait out the storm.  We are sitting there and my friend says "I don't mean to add insult to injury but man, you suddenly have a lot of gray hair."  And a few days later I am telling this story to some work colleagues as we are having a drink to celebrate my birthday and a guy says "well you do." So whenever it hails I always think, it could be worse, in addition to hail damage you could have a broken arm and really noticeable gray hair.

We have free HBO for a few months which hints at the existence of a benevolent god because I was getting sort of panicky about how I was going to keep up with Flight of the Conchords.  Now that's done and I saw a promo for In Treatment.  So I figured I'd check it out in the On Demand library because Gabriel Byrne is pretty sexy.  For some asinine reason, the episodes don't start at the beginning which bothers all my instincts that lean toward order and rationality.   I started watching the earliest ones available and now I'm hooked.  And again panicky because the older episodes are aging off On Demand so I have to hurry and watch a slew of them to keep up.  Falling behind in your television shows should hardly be something to inspire a panic disorder, don't you think?  I've also got like 10 episodes of Breaking Bad to catch up on.  I should have joined a TV club instead of a book club.  

I was so bummed with the whole BPA thing because I had this Camelbak plastic water bottle that I loved.  When I was pregnant I used it all the time since the BPA thing hadn't reached a fever pitch.  But it did have BPA in it so I ended up tossing it and all of our other suspect plastic bottles.  But now, it's BPA free.  I have a SIGG bottle which is nice but I don't really like the drinking spout/valve/whatever it's called.  I really like the Camelbak bite valve.  I ordered a couple of the new bottles.  My daughter loves the bottle too, I got the .5 liter size for her and she figured out the valve right away.  And then proceeded to chug a bunch of water and pee on our couch (I'm sure because she was exposed to too much BPA in utero). 

why I love the neighborhood assoc. email distribution

Last night I (and 200 other people) got this email:

I will bring a dessert.

Not in reply to any email, and no further context provided.  I don't know the sender, we'll call her Viane (her real name), but I was hoping that her idea of dessert was vodka and cupcakes and she was bringing it over to my house.  No such luck.

Surprisingly it didn't really create a flurry of indignant replies like the "oh my god I saw a minority person in our neighborhood, they were in my yard, I think they will kill me....never mind it was the sprinkler company" emails.  

In other thoughts.  Do you ever think to yourself "I think it's really quite possible that I have been in a coma for the last 6 months or so."  Because how else could I explain the fact that ostensibly out of nowhere someone named "lady Gaga" is on every damn gossip site and on the radio every time I get in the car and 2 weeks ago I did not know this person existed.  I'm still not quite sure if it's a man or a woman, until I heard the song on the radio I thought (s)he was a contestant on RuPaul's Drag Queen show.  

Today's thing that doesn't suck is courtesy of my daughter.  Tonight before bath time we spent about half an hour dancing and running around while listening to Dan Zanes.  I like to get the youngin' all worked up and hyper before I demand that she calm down and go to sleep.  I give her some Mountain Dew too, just to heighten the challenge for her.  It's just like college I tell her.  Oh, I kid.  Seriously though, Dan Zanes "All around the kitchen" had her running around waving her hands in the air (as requested) and flapping like a chicken (also as requested).  His version of Hokey Pokey is also a fave.  Check him out if you too would like to hyper stimulate your child before bedtime. 

Got any extra pennies?

Something that my bud DD posted got me to thinking.  It was about bloggers who put out the donation cup for BlogHer.  I don't like it either but hey, it's their blog so they can do whatever they want.  I guess one of the big reasons I don't like it is because of Emily Mandell.  I don't know Emily or her family but I read about her on a blog and I sat reading her story through my tears and my heart ached for her and her parents.  The blogger posted information on how to donate money to Emily's family.  So I donated to her family to help them defray expenses while they live in Boston so Emily can receive treatment for cancer.  And when my daughter's birthday rolled around, I asked my friends and family to do the same, instead of buying a gift for my daughter.  Because we were lucky, we had a healthy child.  I got a hand written note from Emily's family thanking me for my donation and I got an email with a link to Emily's carepage where her updates are posted.   I have followed Emily for the past year and it has been a tough year for her.  But she is obviously an amazing child with amazing parents and she's still fighting.  And so, when I see the BlogHer tip jar out, I can't help but think of Emily and that's where my money will go.  Emily's dad and his friend are running a marathon to raise money for cancer research so if you have any extra scratch and want to throw it toward a worthwhile cause, you can read about it here.

Setting myself up

I totally set myself up for heartbreak.  But you know, sometimes Target's endcap deals are just sooo tempting.  So I saw these organic fruit snacks for kids on clearance (hint:foreshadowing) and bought a few boxes.  And they are like crack for the wee one.  And of course, they are all GONE and no store around here has them.  I'm trying to avoid HFCS and corn syrup and it's hard to find a kids snack without them.  I love the experts' advice to just "offer fruit for snacks" but one thing my kid does not need is more fruit.   I go to the store about every 3 days because we are out of fruit, she can eat a whole container of berries in one sitting - today at lunch she ate a whole mango.  And sometimes I like a quick portable snack, she has a snack when she's in the jogging stroller for her morning run with dad and I keep a few things in the car for meltdown emergencies.  We do a lot of dried fruit too but uh, another thing the kid doesn't need is more poop.  Because we haven't quite mastered that with potty training and suffice it to say, I now have latex gloves and small trash bags in the bathroom now.  

You know what's funny? When people get their panties all in a wad about asinine things.  Like say, my thing that doesn't suck, one of my favorite childhood books Bedtime For Frances.  I bought this book for my daughter when I was pregnant and last night we read it together for the first time.  I was amazed because it's got a lot of text for each page and she was totally into it and didn't get one bit antsy.  When we were done she asked to read it again.  So clearly she was not nearly as traumatized as the children of this Amazon reviewer.  Katya got herself in a wad because Frances gets CAKE after bedtime and her parents threaten to spank her and then go to bed together and snuggle up together and poor Frances is in her room all alone and all she needed is some cuddling and someone to read a book to her.  Did Katya notice that the family in this story are BADGERS? So we've probably got to suspend our disbelief somewhat? I'm guessing Katya probably doesn't have this one in her library.  

Light a candle for chrissake

When it comes to problems, my husband is of the "curse the darkness" ilk and I am more of a "light a candle" take charge person.  For a few weeks the lock on our front door has been a pain in the ass and you have to jiggle the key in it endlessly to get it to work.  Well not endlessly, but long enough to get the high strung dog worked up and barking and waking up the napping child.  So today after my morning run (husband and child were still on their run), I took the bull by the horns and sprayed some WD-40 in the lock.  When my husband got home, this exchange took place.

Him: Hey did you notice that the lock works better?

Me: Yeah, weird isn't it?  It happened right after I sprayed WD-40 in there.  

He seriously has a "wait and see" attitude about home repair.  Because broken ice makers generally fix themselves.  My brother is handy so when he comes to visit he usually tackles all of our household projects.  Which even my not yet 2 year old daughter has figured out.  We have one of those swings that hangs on a tree in our backyard and the fraying rope that holds it on the tree needs to be replaced.  The other day she asked to swing and I told her the swing was broken and her response was "Chris (my brother) fix it."  

Here's something really cool for today's non-suckage.  I wish I would have bought these sooner, but now that I'm venturing in public with my pretty much but not without accidents potty trained toddler, I need to carry some supplies with me.  I got sick of all the ziploc bags and figured I should just buy some cute wet bags.  And I found these. I bought a medium and large and they are both pretty good size and can fit a few changes of clothes, extra undies, etc.  My sewing skills aren't fabulous but I do like to sew and my mother's convinced me that a zipper is not all that complicated so when she comes to visit in a few weeks we're going to attempt to make some of these ourselves.  If you are crafty, you can get the lining at wazoodle.com.  They call it procare.  These would be a great gift for someone with a new baby, I can't figure out why I didn't get one when my daughter was an infant.  I'm thinking they'll be great for all those pool days this summer, which actually starts in about April for us.  

Don't make me tell you to suck it, Jesus

I did say I'd stop telling Jesus to suck it if he laid off for a while.  I'd probably give up telling people (and possible deities) to suck it as my lenten sacrifice but I'm not into lent anymore.  But note to Jesus - "laying off" does not mean making my period two weeks late for no damn good reason.   I'm sure you thought it was funny that I took 3 pregnancy tests just to make sure (something I never would have done had I not accidentally gotten knocked up several months ago making my unexplained infertility move to the categorization of enigmatic infertility), but it wasn't really.  And it was just a waste of money that could have been allocated to candy or vodka.  

So Monday the old period arrived.  Which means it was cycle day 1 of our FET.  Again, I'd like Jesus to note that we can avoid him hearing "suck it" if he just makes things go smoothly.  

In the spirit of "we figure things out late in our house" - evidenced by our dog who was 6 before he realized - hey I can just go to the back door when I need to poop instead of going in the hallway, my nearly 22 month old daughter just figured out that yelling "MOMMY" from her crib means I will come in her room.  Up to this point when she awoke in the morning she'd read and play and then when I was awake, I'd go get her.  Then one night she wasn't asleep yet and wanted a different book selection and started yelling for me and realized - it worked, I came in an accommodated her request.  Now she gets one return visit, I am usually at my computer which is near her room so when she yells for me I say "yes" and she tells me what she wants.  Last night I told her I was done coming in there so I heard her yelling "mommy" then answering "yes" to herself.  Most of the time, this age is pretty good.  

Today's thing that doesn't suck is something I hope you all get.  Great house guests.  We had some friends visit for a few days with their two children.  Their children are very nice and well behaved and they are a very cool and low key family.  I don't really mind guests, usually I really like it, but it's just so much nicer when they are low maintenance!

I don't care about Dora

You know what, I really don't care that Dora the Explorer is growing up.  Fine, let her get boobs and her period and pimples and wear low rise tight jeans and text 10,000 times a day, she'll soon see that being a grown up sucks.  Yes, you can have soda for breakfast but really, that's the only benefit as far as I can tell.  

And now and amusing little story.  I've never been to a presidential library.  Which is kind of strange because I love stuff like that.  Actually my motto is "the more dioramas the better."  Ok, that's not my motto but dioramas totally do not suck.  A family friend was in Austin a little while ago and went to the LBJ library and was telling me how great it is and how it was so educational and had great information about LBJ and the civil rights movement.  And I thought, ok, I'll get there at some point.  But THEN I heard something on our local NPR segment about the animatronic LBJ at the library.  Originally commissioned and used by Neiman Marcus (I don't know why), this life size replica of LBJ is programmed using a loop of LBJ himself telling folksy stories.  My only thought upon hearing that was "I want to go to there."  How could my friend not have mentioned the potential "creep you the fuck out" factor of the LBJ library???

We had some friends in town so we went to the LBJ library yesterday (after a trip to the Texas Memorial museum for yes....dioramas).  And oh my god, the animatronic LBJ is awesome.  It's creepy and I was disappointed that it appeared to be wearing modern clothes - I want some authenticity here and would like to see old LBJ jeans on this thing - but it's worth it.  Why they don't have a replica of the animatronic replica on billboards all over town advertising the library, I do not know.  And it's FREE!  

So today's thing that doesn't suck is the animatronic LBJ.  You can see it for yourself here.  

Random Friday

I was driving home from Target today and flipping radio stations and heard this "coming up I've got some new Rush for you!"  Seriously?  What else do you have?  Some brand spanking new Cheap Trick, Loverboy, and whoever sang that stupid song Mr. Roboto?  Some things need to just die a dignified death.  Like the film career of Daryl Hannah.  I'm pretty sure it's dead but if Rush is still cranking out albums then there's likely some new Daryl Hannah vehicle in the works.  Legal Eagles 2 perhaps.

To Jenny who made the Wiggles comment on my last post: we've made the old/new yellow wiggle jump.  And I've watched so much Wiggles that I noticed that new Wiggle Sam is actually one of Captain Feathersword's old pirate crew named "Dave."  He drank tea with his pinky out and wore a monocle.  Yes, I know this means my life is quite droll.  

I decided to skip the neighbor's baby shower.  I didn't get her a gift either.  We've got friends coming to town this weekend and a million other things going on, plus I just didn't feel like it.  

I've gotten off the things that don't suck wagon but I'll be back on soon.  I promise.  Potty training and crappy sleep all week have left my mind devoid of inspiration.  

Oh no

The Wiggles obsession has claimed its second victim.  The other day when Ellie was watching a DVD my husband said "captain feathersword looks much thinner in this one and it looks like Greg is wearing a toupee."  This is from the least observant person EVER, who once insisted to me that wild ostriches had chased him when he was running one day (they were turkeys).  

Potty Training Days 3&4

Well we're only 1/2 way through day 4 but the child seemed to have her Oprah 'aha' moment this morning.  She's usually great about sitting on the toilet, we usually sit for 2-5 minutes max, but this morning during one try she wanted off immediately.  So I just said "just go potty and then you can get down" and she stopped, and it was like a lightbulb went on, and she just went potty.  And she did it three more times throughout the morning.  I think something just clicked.  The poop thing is a different story but this is a process so we're just relishing in our success right now.

We had a friend and her son over yesterday for a playdate.  This friend is also in my book club and was there when the potty training discussion transpired at our last book club.  At the time I thought a few women, for lack of a better description, jumped my shit when I mentioned I was thinking about starting potty training.  But it wasn't until my friend said yesterday "man, they really got on you about that" that I had some confirmation that I wasn't just being overly sensitive.  The whole context of the discussion was just that I was thinking of starting, I was careful to not say what I thought was right or that doing it later or earlier is wrong so I'm positive I wasn't talking in an offensive way (my friend also confirmed this).  The more I thought about, the more it bugged me but I really think I figured out what's behind it.  The most vocal of the "shit jumpers" was one woman whose son is almost 3 and not even started potty training.  I really think that she got defensive because she wants to validate that what she is doing (waiting) is right.  And since I'm not waiting then surely I must think that she is wrong and therefore a bad mother.  Side note: She's kind of defensive like this about a lot of stuff.  On one hand I do feel for her, she has stresses like we all do.  But like my best friend says, we create a lot of our own problems.  When she had one kid she complained that he didn't sleep, her husband traveled a lot and was never home, she had work issues, she doesn't have a lot of help, and they had money issues.  And then she had another child.  On purpose.  So I think, to a certain degree take responsibility, having another baby kind of compounded your issues.  

Ok, I got off track.  But here's my point (I really do have one).  I'm not a potty training expert by any stretch.  But I think I have some good observation and problem solving skills.  With potty training, as with lots of other things we confront as parents, there are lots of ways of doing things.  And you have to do the thing that works for you.  Like breastfeeding or sleep training.  You have to decide what you can deal with and what will work for you.  I don't care what you do, it's not my decision to make, it doesn't affect me, I'm not going to make a judgment call on whatever you do (caveat: unless some choice you make impacts the safety of my child or yours, e.g. not using a car seat).  But I think there's so much talk about "readiness" as far as the child is concerned I think a lot of this is clouding the real issue.  Which is parental readiness.  Because potty training is a colossal pain in the ass for the parents.  It's immensely frustrating and stressful.  So as I told my friend yesterday, one of the big reasons we are potty training right now is because it's good timing for us (mom and dad).  We're both home, we don't need to be anywhere, we don't have other kids.  If I was pregnant, or had a new baby, or was putting my house one the market or was working (all things going on with my friends) I wouldn't be starting potty training now.  I couldn't deal with it.  

I don't think anyone is a bad parent or "doing it wrong" because they do something differently.  I did a lot of research and despite Ms. Defensive's claims that potty training "too early will cause problems," I've found that potty training overall really doesn't lead to problems as long as it's not punitive.  It's not so much timing that's critical as methodology.  And not any one methodology, just something that doesn't punish the child and reassures them that they are safe and loved by their parents.  

And with that, I'm done talking about potty training forever.  

Not solving the world's problems

You know when you are sort of drifting off to sleep and you have a "brilliant" thought?  I imagine  for the great minds of history, it goes something like this: Louis Pasteur "oh, I know, I'll come up with a VACCINE so then when all those rabid forest creatures bite us, we won't die anymore!"

For me it goes something like this: "if it weren't for the cycling part, they could totally have a triathlon for dogs."  Yes folks, I am someone's mother.  

Potty Training Day 2

Today was a bit better.  Our success rate was 25% today and the best part is I only have 6 pairs of wet underwear instead of 40.  So things are looking up.

In the interest of public service, here are a few pointers for anyone who is going to potty train in the future:

1. That DVD player you thought would be great to keep in the bathroom to entertain the kid on the toilet?  That plan will backfire when the child will want to remove it from the bathroom and spend the next half hour trying to throw it over the back of the couch.
2. The hair clip the kid just took out of her hair?  Grab it!  You know it's going to be in the toilet in 10 seconds right?  Too late.
3. The running water trick doesn't work with the kid who is obsessed with playing in water.  It will just make her want to get off the toilet and play in the sink.   And then she'll pee while she's doing that.  All over the step stool.
4. The candy reward for going on the toilet will lead to epic power struggles.  Because really, would 3 M&M's satisfy you?
5. If you have anyone in your immediate family in their teenage years invite them over to observe.  And then ask them how much fun unprotected sex and teenage pregnancy look now.  I'm talking to you Bristol Palin.

Potty Training Day 1

So yeah, it sucks.  I followed Tina's suggestion and bought the online book she used (we'll call this Method A).  A friend sent me another one, we'll call this Method B.  I liked them both.  They are both similar but Method A has you take the child and sit on the toilet at regular intervals.  Method B says, tell them (a million times) "tell mommy when you have to go potty."  Method B also says throw out all the diapers, even for naps.  Method A says diapers/pull ups are ok for naps and bedtime.  Method B also says to have an insane amount of underwear, the author says that her son had 50 accidents the first day.  That is insane I think to myself (hint:foreboding), I have 20 pairs of underwear, surely a child cannot go to the bathroom more than 20 times in a day.

And so, we start the day using mostly Method B in that I start saying "tell mommy when you have to go potty" and I say it about every 5 seconds thereafter.  We go for like over an hour with no activity so I think, I will follow Method B author's advice and give her some extra liquid.  Now I never give her juice because it's like crack and she can't stop at just one.  That and the diaper issues, and well because there's no real upside for it.  But I think, I want lots of learning opportunities so I will give her one of those 4 oz juice boxes I have leftover from a playdate.  And about two hours later I've gone through 23 pairs of underwear.  Somewhere around accident #10 I figured I better throw a load of laundry in.  Finally I gave up on the "just tell mommy you have to go potty" portion of the method.  We move to the just taking her at a certain frequency but quickly find that the suggested time period of 20-25 minutes is enough time for about 4-5 peeing on a toy opportunities and adjust the timing.  We don't have any success until after naptime (which is cut short because she pooped in her diaper).  But finally we have several successes - including poop - which get her applause and M&M's.  Then we have a few meltdowns when she demands M&M's without using the toilet.  And I figure out after dinner why she was randomly saying "yea" and clapping her hands (wet her pants).  

We're at the end of day 1 and I bet we went through 40 pairs of underwear.  At naptime I ran to Target and bought their remaining stock of 2T underwear - which amazingly was only 24 pairs. Is everyone potty training? Because my usual Target and Wal-Mart both had pathetically low supplies.  The whole process is immensely frustrating.  But I'm guessing since so many potty training methods claim to be 3 day methods that Rome wasn't potty trained in a day so to speak.  I can see how someone could try it and give up after day 1.  But I'm going to stick it out.  I figure day 1 is going to suck, now or in 6 months or in a year.  But dear god, I am so glad it's bedtime and I get a respite from my urine soaked clothes after running into the bathroom 40 times.  

Clip coupons, and other assvice

Is anyone else sick of the dumb "money saving tips" that are on all the morning shows and splashed across Yahoo?  I am truly mystified how that coupon lady on the Today show seems to be saving like $100 on every visit to the store and spending $8 on a giant cart of groceries. There aren't any grocery stores in my area that double coupons.  And with coupons I save about $2.00 a week tops.  

Then today on Yahoo - "Save 25% on your grocery bill."  Here's the advice - only go to the store every two weeks.  Then you're forced to use everything and don't overbuy.  How about going one step better?  Build a bunker in your house.  Go to Costco and buy a year's worth of canned goods and water and live in your bunker off that food.  Make sure you don't watch any television otherwise you will realize that YOUR LIFE SUCKS.

In the interest of not dumb advice, I finally got on board with Flo the Progressive chick.  And we saved $55 a month on our car insurance.  Not only that, we got higher coverage for less money.   The best part is that none of that money goes to making creepy ads involving google eyes and a pile of money.  Perhaps Geico can save me money but freaking me out does not help them convince me of that.

In another piece of super helpful advice.  Do not leave big tub of craft crap within reach of your toddler.  See above picture for a visual representation of why not.

Today's thing that doesn't suck: cinnamon rolls from scratch.  If you have a bread machine with a dough cycle, they are super easy to make.  Get your dough all ready with the machine, roll it out, smother it with butter (about 4 tablespoons, room temp), cover with sugar and cinnamon, and roll it up.  Cut into whatever size rolls you want and put on your baking sheet/pan, cover and let them rise about 30 minutes.  Then bake at 350 for about 20'ish minutes (depending on your oven).  Make an easy icing with powdered sugar, vanilla, and milk.  Yum!  Last step is to hide them from toddler view after you've listened to way too many repetitions of "this,this,this,this,this." 

Calling all stupid people

We had a call from our Toyota dealer today, letting us know that it's daylight savings and also that they can help us set the clock in our car for the time change.  That is great news, because setting the clock is super complicated.  You have to press the "H" button by the clock and it advances the clock by the hour.  And yet every year, there I am poking the cigarette lighter and damning it to adjust the time.  I curse technology and all the frustration it hath wrought. 

TV makes your brain mushy

For a long time, nearly a year and a half, my daughter awoke bright eyed and ready for the day at 5:00 a.m.  I'm not a morning person so getting me to the point where I was embracing the day took a few more hours.  So when she was about a year old, we started watching tv, just so I could veg out and down some caffeine and get my brain kind of functioning.  That's when we discovered the Wiggles.  Or should I say, that's when the Wiggles bore into her little brain never to leave it again.  They were on at 6:00 a.m. so it was right up our alley.  I checked out a few videos from the library and we found the one that she loves so I found it on ebay for $6.  And that DVD is like crack.  She requests it several times a day.  It starts like this, a simple request - "Wiggles?" and when I don't answer within a nanosecond, she ramps it up "Wiggles?Wiggles?Wiggles?" and then she gets this plaintive desperation in her voice "WIGGLES!?WIGGLES!?WIGGLES!?"  Fearing that Alec Baldwin might be right and tv is just to make our brains mushy so they are tastier for aliens, I've decided we need to limit the amount of television watching.  Somewhere between her desire of 10-12 hours a day and what I deem reasonable  - the time it takes for me to cook a meal or read the paper.  

We were at Target yesterday so I thought, hey, let's get a little something that will be a good Wiggles substitute.  What about Play-Doh!!  And it is here that I must confess my unnatural love of the smell of Play-Doh, so this was likely a completely self serving purchase.  I was seriously thinking, we are totally getting the Fuzzy Pumper Barber Shop because my mom wouldn't let me have one, it'll be awesome!  Apparently they stopped selling that in like 1977, what the fuck, Play-Doh people??? How am I supposed to re-live my childhood through my child if you are selling a Baby Alive that looks like a mutant alien baby, no Snoopy snow cone makers, and no damn Fuzzy Pumper Barber Shop?  I got what appeared to be the next best thing, a monkey that has Play Doh coming out of its head.  Of course after I get all the pieces out and we play with it for a while I discover there are a few pieces missing.  DAMN YOU PLAY-DOH PEOPLE!  They do not want me to be happy.  Despite the missing pieces which prevent us from enjoying the full range of monkey hair do's, the Play-Doh went over pretty well.  That is when the kid and the dog weren't trying to eat the Play-Doh.  The child did eat a little bit, discovered it tasted like crap, and spit it out.  Not 2 minutes later, I saw her try it again.  Good thing that 529 isn't doing well, she might be on track for trade school.  Side note - she is freakily attracted to trade school commercials.  There's one where they sing "one day, one night, Saturday's alright, National American University."  If she hears it, she'll come running from the other room to watch it.  

So today's thing that doesn't suck is Play-Doh.  Smells great, tastes not so great, but pushing Play-Doh out a monkey's head is entertaining enough to squelch Wiggles requests for at least 30 minutes.  

It's the economy stupid

Last night I saw a commercial for some credit counseling company that can "help" you negotiate a settlement for your credit card debt.  The pitch man said "bad news for the credit card companies GOOD news for you."  Actually asshat, it IS bad news for me.  Since in my former life, I was in the banking/credit industry I know of which I speak.  So here's a little breakdown of why this is insane.

The "credit card companies" are BANKS.  The top credit card issuers in this country are JP Morgan Chase, Citibank,  and Bank of America.  You know, the banks that are getting BILLIONS of dollars in bailout money?  Yes, those guys.  Notwithstanding whatever's going on with that bailout money banks are in fact publicly traded companies.  Which means that they are in business for the purpose of making money for their shareholders.  So yes, they are going to charge you interest and fees because that's how they make money.  I won't bore you with all the details but being a credit card issuer requires a lot of capital.  The hardware, software, and people costs to be an issuer are very high.  

Credit cards should not be used as long term credit vehicles.  Yes, most have high interest rates. That the credit card issuers disclose when they issue the card.  And every month on your statement.  Part of the reason that the interest rates are high is because the issuers have to cover their risk.  Risk that someone is going to charge a bunch of crap that they can't afford, see a stupid commercial convincing them they shouldn't have to pay it all back and then end up doing just that.  

And that is bad for me.  It's bad for all of us.  It puts the struggling banks in an even worse position and increases the likelihood that even more taxpayer money will flow their way.  

How about taking responsibility instead?  I'm not just talking out of my ass here.  I was young and stupid once too.  I had credit card debt.  I graduated from law school 15 years ago and was living in San Francisco and working for the federal government making $22,000 a year.  And I had $80,000 in student loan debt.  I used my credit cards a lot.  Mostly for stuff I couldn't afford - vacations, clothes, etc.   Then I moved back to my hometown where the standard of living was lower and took a new job.  I wasn't making much more money then but I was working with a guy who is the world's most conservative guy in terms of money (he will nearly always stop to pick up change, even a penny).  He was such a positive influence on me that I stopped charging all together and made it my mission to pay off my credit card debt.  It took me like 3 years.  All my bonus money went toward that.  Oh, I wished I could have spent it on something frivolous but the day I paid off that debt was such an exhilerating feeling.  

Monday is the big day

The other night at my book club the subject of potty training came up.  There were two camps, the "the child will potty train when he's ready" and the "We're doing it when I say it's time (around age 2)."  Granted there are only a few people with experience in each camp, the rest of us have kids who are just inching up on age two.  One mom in the "ready" camp has an almost three year old who is nowhere near being potty trained.  Meaning, they aren't doing anything.  She also has the kids that "don't sleep" and her 11 month old gets up 4 times a night to nurse.  I was talking to my best friend about this - she has 3 children, a set of twins and a singleton and she made a very good and valid point when she said "parents create a lot of their own problems."  I know sleep is a very hot button issue and part of your child's sleep habits are attributable to their disposition but some of it is externally influenced.  I had my "aha" moment on this when my daughter turned a year old.  From the time she was about 4 months old she always got up once a night to nurse.  And it wasn't that big of a deal because she was the world's easiest nurser (I'm sorry, I know not everyone has this experience and I realize I was lucky) so I would literally nurse her for 10 minutes and she'd go back to sleep and then I'd go back to bed.  As she got older I kept thinking she'd just drop that middle of the night feed but she never did.  And since it wasn't a huge deal for me really, I just kept doing it.  Then when she turned one, I started weaning.  I dropped her day time nursing then the middle of the night.  The first two nights she woke, I went and comforted her and didn't nurse her and after that she slept a solid 12 hours without waking.  Duh I thought, I should have done that about 3 months ago.  The thing is I never tried.

So that leads me to potty training.  I am in the hardass camp on this.  A Harvard study in the 1950's showed that 9 out of 10 children was potty trained BY age two.  I was trained by two and don't think that I suffer any long-term trauma because my mom didn't wait until I decided I was ready.  Well, I am annoyed that my bathroom activities seem to draw an audience but I don't think that's related to early potty training - that's just having a dog and a kid.  Monday is the big day here, the day potty training begins in earnest.  Meaning, we are not leaving the house for about 3 days and we are spending our days making visits to the potty.  I know this is not going to be fun but quite frankly, changing the poopy diapers of a writhing toddler is the opposite of fun.  I see the terrible twos looming on our horizon so I'm inclined to get this over with before EVERYTHING in our lives becomes a battle of wills.  Because that's the kind of child I have.  I figure it can't hurt to try, nothing ventured nothing gained right?  

Oh for fuck's sake

Most days, CNN serves up winners in their neverending search for local crazy ass stories.  Here's an awesome one today: a mother was ticketed for breastfeeding her child while driving (and also talking on her cell phone at the same time).  You must watch the video interview of the mother because the child is in it.  Let me clarify, the CHILD RUNS INTO THE SHOT.  Yes, the child appears to be around 2.  So clearly this was a case of a child who needed to eat immediately and breast feeding just couldn't wait.  

The really appalling part of the story is that the mother doesn't seem to understand the gravity of the safety issue.  According to police, the child's head was resting on the steering wheel.  The mom didn't think that was any big deal.  Several years ago, in my home-town, a six year old boy was going to church with his grandmother.  Sitting in the front-seat without a seat-belt, the air bag deployed when they were involved in a low speed (20 mph) accident.  The boy suffered vertebral fractures and rendered a quadriplegic.  You can read about it here. 

Icky

Please reassure me that it's normal to find a 2 year old child completely annoying and disgusting to the point that when you see him your immediate first thought is "ick."  This is not my child incidentally.  Now I know that I do not have a perfect child.  But I also do not have a child who spends a two hour playdate whining and crying about every single damn thing and hitting and pushing other children.  We had a playdate the other day with 6 other children.  I expect occasional fights over toys and toddler squabbles about stupid crap whenever we are around other kids, hey, you put 7 monkeys in a cage together and someone's gonna get smacked.  These are all 2'ish year olds and one three year old.  Everyone played pretty well and got along nicely.  Except for this one kid, he literally spent the whole two hours engaged in an altercation with someone (one kid in particular, they are a toxic combo).  When he wasn't embroiled in fisticuffs he was whining/crying about something: somebody hit him (because he hit them first), he dropped something, he fell, he fell again because he was crying too much and not watching where he was walking, someone else had the audacity to want to go down the slide, etc.  His mother deals with this by acting like it's funny and quipping witticisms to him like "act your age not your shoe size."  She also was once making a big deal about her infertility issues and how they had to do IUI.  Once.  And it was a big deal because insurance wouldn't cover it.  Yawn.  So I don't know, maybe icky kid is her penance for being dumbly oblivious. 

Today's non suck item: We're all about bubbles here and since I left the bubble machine outside last summer and it became some sort of insect graveyard - helpful hint: insects are attracted to bubble solution - we had to get a new one.  We've been waiting for the new crop to come in at Target and we were rewarded yesterday with the Bubble Bellies.  A couple of my daughter's friends have them so I knew she liked it.  It was only $8.88 at Target so don't get it at Amazon.  So far it's a big hit.  Though my daughter refuses to do it herself and keeps saying "mommy do it."  So I'm doing some forearm exercises while she naps to gear up for round 6 of bubbles this afternoon, standing idle and holding a bubble making lion is torture on your arms.