Week In Review

Sharing is a relative concept

Most parents accuse their kids of having selective hearing (particularly teenagers), but I’m here to tell you that sharing is a selective concept for toddlers. Just try to get a 2 or 3 year old to share his neon orange soccer ball, and I’ve seen fights erupt over sand toys at the park that rival anything the WWF could ever have dreamed up. However, if they have a wicked cold with all kinds of nasty germs to make you miserable, they are more than happy to share that with you. And if you are eating something the toddler wants (like say a pickle or cookie) they expect you to share your goodie with them without so much as a second thought.

You can pick your friend’s nose
Well, you can and probably should pick your toddlers. Along with the nasty cold comes the gobs of yellowy whitish goo that seems to pour from Tenley’s nose. If it wasn’t a biohazard I could bottle this stuff and make millions selling it to little boys because it is the perfect consistency of sticky slime. The only way to get this stuff out is to attack with the nasal aspirator, which strangely enough, my kid loves. She sees me get the blue bulb and some kleenex and comes running to flop in my lap with her head over my leg so I can roto-rooter her nose. She generally just lays there and giggles. I’m guessing it must tickle, but I know she feels better after it’s out. Unfortunately it’s too small to work in my nose, although I’ve been eying the turkey baster and wondering if it would be a good fit for me.

Hey buddy, can you spare $2000?
Jeff got up and left for work on Thursday morning, but he didn’t get too far. His car decided it had had enough of this pesky changing gears thing, and decided not to do that any more. He managed to get back home, and after he re-started the car OD, D4, D3, and R were a no go, but D2 worked! So he cruised very slowly to the Honda dealer, and then got a ride to work. A call at 4:45 confirmed the worst: his transmission was toast. Ugh. However, Jim the Mechanic did have 1 piece of good news for us: apparently, 2000 Honda Accords had some transmission issues and Honda issued a recall, so since the car was still under 100,000 miles, Honda will replace it for free!! Whew! I thought I was going to have to slap a Union Jack on it and call that our trip to London!

Next stop, Everest
My little monkey has discovered the joy of climbing. I went to the bathroom and returned to the living room to find her standing on the computer desk. She’s been scaling the couch for weeks, and now she’s apparently mastered the chairs at the desk too. We have forbidden her from climbing on the coffee table and end tables because we’re trying to reinforce the idea that her feet & butt do not belong on any table. :::sigh::: Now I have to re-evaluate the house for climbing opportunities.

Your children can save you money
It looks like we’ve reached the end of an era. No more dining out for us. Little Miss Busy Pants is no longer content to just move around on the seat of a booth, and is trying to crawl across the table, slide under the table (and escape), scale windows- whatever. Food, crayons and the sugar caddy are not holding her interest. God help us if the service is slow. We’ve had two dinners in this week alone where we almost left a $20 on the table and left before the food even arrived. So it looks like we’ll be eating at home until we can make someone understand appropriate restaurant behavior.

Stranded at the K Mart
Grandma Suzie apparently lost her mind and on a recent outing to the K Mart in Ontario she decided to buy Tenley one of those Little Tykes Playhouses that cost as much as a thoroughbred racehorse. The playhouse was on sale, but what she forgot to take into account was the size of the box vs. the size of her late model Honda sedan. A hasty call was made to my husband who was out running errands with the Tenster, and as soon as they had secured a new sound card for the computer they were on their way to Ontario to rescue Mom who was getting strange looks from passer-bys as she sat in the Kmart parking lot with a large brown box leaning against her car. Fortunately it fit in the CRV, and we didn’t have to call Doug & Tina and beg for the use of their truck.

And the Nominees are...
Not us. Normally Oscar Sunday is a big night in our house. We usually have friends over, vote on our own ballots (with prizes for the most right and the least right),give out goodie bags, and have themed food (baby Broke-back ribs, Munich German potato salad, Constant Gardener salad, Memoirs of a Geisha’s sushi rolls, Charlie and the Chocolate Fondue). But this year we had 2 people with raging colds, and decided most folks weren’t going to be happy about wallowing in our germs. It was probably just as well- John Stewart does great with political humor, but I don’t think he was the best choice for the Oscars- it was a rather boring show. Hopefully we’ll roll out the red carpet again next year.